The players in Iraq

In recent months, we regular folk have been bombarded with a lot of new political and religious terms and organizations from the world of Islam. Sometimes, the footing with this info-barrage gets a mite slippery. This is as good a time as any to take a breath and catch up on some background information.

First off, we’re constantly reading about the two main sects of Islam, the Sunnis and the Shiites. These sects are to Islam what Catholics and Protestants are to Christianity. The Sunnis get their name from their allegiance to the Sunna, which are writings dealing with Muslim law based on the teachings and practices of Mohammed the Prophet. Sunnites also accept the first four caliphs after Mohammed as the rightful heirs to positions of Islamic authority. The Shiites don’t think the Sunna is so swell, and they believe Ali, the fourth caliph and Mohammed’s son-in-law, is the main man in the post-prophet power grab, and nuts to the other three jokers. The feuds between the two sects go back about 1,300 years.

The term “theocracy” is getting tossed around a lot lately, what with concerns that Iraqis might well vote in that direction once their day in the voting booth arrives. A theocracy simply means a government of God, one that is run by people who claim they rule with divine authority. In a theocracy, the separation of church and state is a concept honored with all the respect you’d show that piss cake in the urinal.

Then, there’s Al Qaida, the weirdest Al since Yankovic. The term is Arabic for “the base,” and its mission is to purge all Muslim countries of the profane influence of the West. They don’t, as our president is fond of saying, “hate us because we’re free.” It’s more accurate to say they hate us because we’re perverted infidels. Of course, this is a preposterous political platform; just ask the e-mail smut lord who wants to sell you naked photos of teen-age runaways.

Hamas is the major Muslim fundamentalist movement of the Palestinians. Their stated mission is to destroy the state of Israel, give the boot to Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian authority, and “raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.” The suicide bombers who have killed 787 Israelis in the last two and a half years come from the ranks of Hamas. It is estimated that 90 percent of Hamas’ annual operating budget of $70 million is spent on various Palestinian social needs, like schools, health clinics, soup kitchens and sports leagues.

Yet another group of Muslim fundamentalists, Hezbollah is a Lebanese group of Shiite militants that doesn’t like the West, hates Israel and would like to set up a government modeled on the current Iranian theocracy. Their main claim to fame was the killing of 238 U.S. marines with that catastrophic double truck bombing that took place in Beirut back in ’83.

Thanks to terrorismanswers.com for much help. If you’re into it, they’ll keep you busy for a while.